LONGMONT -- After putting up more than $2 million for a Longmont Museum auditorium, the Stewart family is ready to up the ante again ... if the city will meet them partway.

The offer is simple. Former KLMO co-owner Lila Jean Stewart will put another half-million dollars into the project. But in return, she wants to see the city put in another $250,000 as well, a decision the Longmont City Council will consider on Tuesday.

"This is huge," museum director Wes Jessup said. "This is like major, major, major. The amount of money (the Stewarts) have given is extraordinary by any standard."

If the council says yes, that would match the quarter-million that the city already has put into the project, for a total of $500,000. It also would bring the total money raised for the project to nearly $3.7 million, placing the auditorium within striking distance of its $4.2 million goal.

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More immediately, the donation and grant would put fundraising near the 90 percent mark. Once the project hits that point, city officials said, the city can take bids for construction.

In a memo, Jessup and community services director Karen Roney said the council's contribution could come from city one-time funds -- that is, unexpected savings or revenues in the 2012 budget that were carried over into 2013.

"Should Council approve this additional allocation its $500,000 (total contribution) will have leveraged $2.5 million from the Stewart family: a 1:5 ratio," Jessup and Roney wrote.

A green light from the council also would kick off the museum's public fundraising campaign, Jessup said.

As proposed, the 250-seat Stewart Auditorium would have a 40-seat educational area and a glass-walled lobby and atrium big enough to host an 85-person dinner.

"In a way, one plus one plus one is going to equal seven," architect Rick Peterson said in February 2012, as he explained the project's flexibility.

The Stewarts originally pledged the first $1 million anonymously. That mask fell off last year when Lila Jean Stewart and her husband, Bill, (who died in October) publicly added another $750,000 to the pot. Interest income on both gifts pushed the total to over $2 million.

Not counting the Stewarts, private donors and foundations have put in about $650,000 during the "quiet phase" of the campaign. That includes grants from the Boettcher Foundation and the Gates Family Foundation.

The family also gave $1 million to help build the current Longmont Museum, 400 Quail Road. The building opened in 2002.

Jessup said he hopes to see ground broken by late summer or early fall.

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